Yes, Styleforum gets money for each pageview, for ads like those served up by adsense. All non-direct advertising comes under one of three categories. CPM is the most common form of payout, and it is the revenue per 1000 impressions. Then there are CPC ads, or revenue per click, and the revenue per earned commission. Like pretty much any decent sized site that has professional people running the ad feeds, our ad people try to optimize between the three sources of revenue. It's obviously not an exact science.

Ad revenues are pretty much how any internet media and social media site survives/thrives/makes a billion dollars. Obviously, it would be great if you would whitelist Styleforum. We already forego a far bit of ad revenue by not allowing interactive ads, autoplay ads, etc... that are now the norm across the space, to make Styleforum a good experience for anyone who comes to the site.

Obviously that doesn't mean selling members email addresses to third parties, but working with third parties to send properly targeted email campaign to members who have opted into receiving those particular emails.

SF has a lot of unexplored potential with content marketing, in general. The fact that there isn't even really a blog or much editorial content at all strikes me as a missed opportunity. But maybe the ROI is not there.

Obviously that doesn't mean selling members email addresses to third parties, but working with third parties to send properly targeted email campaign to members who have opted into receiving those particular emails.

No brainer IMO, but then I work in email :/

We actually have @Synthese and the rest of the gang working on a Holiday newsletter. We are not ever going to sell our (very large, very useful) email list, or even rent it out, but we will be starting a quarterly newsletter, and hopefully going to monthly, and then perhaps exploring the option of a Thrillist style "Events and cool gear" newsletter, for those members who opt in to receiving newsletters, obviously. I personally like that stuff, from retailers, whatever. Especially living in the middle of nowhere, it keeps me a little connected, and gives me ideas of what to eat, do, when I travel, and of course, what is coming in at retailers, what I can buy, what sales are going on, etc...

Of course, all this takes manpower and logistics, and I'm not gonna lie, I've already got a ton on my plate.

SF has a lot of unexplored potential with content marketing, in general. The fact that there isn't even really a blog or much editorial content at all strikes me as a missed opportunity. But maybe the ROI is not there.

Hell, it'd be easy enough to automate a weekly roundup email to send to people who opt in with a simple CPC or CPA ad banner.

Most of the problem with content marketing is that the content tends to be a bit shit, good content isn't cheap, although being a forum there's a huge amount of UGC to work with. But you're right, without knowing any of the figures, it's hard to make any assumptions about what could or could not work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LA Guy

We actually have @Synthese and the rest of the gang working on a Holiday newsletter. We are not ever going to sell our (very large, very useful) email list, or even rent it out, but we will be starting a quarterly newsletter, and hopefully going to monthly, and then perhaps exploring the option of a Thrillist style "Events and cool gear" newsletter, for those members who opt in to receiving newsletters, obviously. I personally like that stuff, from retailers, whatever. Especially living in the middle of nowhere, it keeps me a little connected, and gives me ideas of what to eat, do, when I travel, and of course, what is coming in at retailers, what I can buy, what sales are going on, etc...

Of course, all this takes manpower and logistics, and I'm not gonna lie, I've already got a ton on my plate.

Neat, I'll definitely be signing up to that.

I absolutely don't think you should be selling your list, that bad practice in general. But I don't see any harm in letting people opt-in to receiving carefully curated messages from third parties, sent from your ESP, with HTML you control. I can appreciate that not everyone thinks that that's a good idea, but I've seen very positive results from going that route myself, as the advertiser.

If you want any advice about email stuff, even simple things like working out which ESP will suit your needs or whatever, feel free to shoot me a PM, I'd be happy to chat about things :)

I've read every article Synthese has written on SF, some of them multiple times. If the content quality is that good, I'll definitely keep reading. The fact that they get buried with regular threads is a shame; furthermore, I think high quality content like this can help set the tone for a higher-quality community. And, pragmatically, it opens a lot of advertising opportunities.

I've read every article Synthese has written on SF, some of them multiple times. If the content quality is that good, I'll definitely keep reading. The fact that they get buried with regular threads is a shame; furthermore, I think high quality content like this can help set the tone for a higher-quality community. And, pragmatically, it opens a lot of advertising opportunities.

Looking forward to the newsletter!

Yup.

I'd love to see some video content - Synthese wandering around Pitti Uomo in a caffeinated/hungover/sleep deprived stupor, that kind of thing, but obviously costs and skill barrier there are higher than simply (not that it's simple) writing content.

This is the reason that we are going to do this right. We've been getting pressure to do this for a while, but since we are not actually selling anything most of the time, we don't have the easy message "click through to see all the cool stuff you can buy from us," and so we really need to be able to highlight cool stuff.

So, you'll get some content that is going to be housed on Styleforum.net, but will only be able to be reached from the newsletter for the first week or so. If you want to read Synth's funny shit, you'l have to click through, or like, maybe get the link from other members (there is always a loophole). It provides value for those who actually read the newsletter, but at the same time, the content is not lost to the forum.

We'll see how it works. tbh, I meant to start this last year, but some health stuff still has me at about 70%. I tend to go full tilt, so not being able to access that 30% has made the past 5 months or so (before that, I was closer to like, 20%, just getting essential stuff done), slows things down immensely.

This is the reason that we are going to do this right. We've been getting pressure to do this for a while, but since we are not actually selling anything most of the time, we don't have the easy message "click through to see all the cool stuff you can buy from us," and so we really need to be able to highlight cool stuff.

So, you'll get some content that is going to be housed on Styleforum.net, but will only be able to be reached from the newsletter for the first week or so. If you want to read Synth's funny shit, you'l have to click through, or like, maybe get the link from other members (there is always a loophole). It provides value for those who actually read the newsletter, but at the same time, the content is not lost to the forum.

We'll see how it works. tbh, I meant to start this last year, but some health stuff still has me at about 70%. I tend to go full tilt, so not being able to access that 30% has made the past 5 months or so (before that, I was closer to like, 20%, just getting essential stuff done), slows things down immensely.

I think you might be wrong there to some extent, you've got all the affiliate stuff going on, I'm sure a lot of them would want to pay a small fee to receive that extra level of promotion in a newsletter. It's not about what subscribers can buy from you, it's about what they can buy from your partners, all you should be worrying about is making sure the content we're being sent on a regular basis is good.